by M. J. Scott
“I don’t think the queen is thinking quite that rationally just now. The Speaker—”
“Were they . . .” I let my voice trail off. Lovers? Friends? Did the Fae queen take lovers? Presumably she was supposed to produce an heir eventually—though I realized I didn’t know anything about the Fae’s rules of succession, it having been centuries since there had been a change of power in the Veiled World—but I didn’t think she had.
Fen shrugged. “I don’t know, but he’s been Speaker as long as she’s been queen. Her most trusted courtier. Her advocate and her voice. That’s got to be like losing a limb even if they weren’t sharing a bed. Plus our queen has never taken harm to what is hers lightly. She was already on edge about the court after Holly’s—” He stopped suddenly.
“I know about that,” I said. Knew that Holly’s father had been involved in some kind of plot against the queen.
“Ah. Yes. Well, anyway, she has good reason to be paranoid.”
“But what does that mean?”
“Well, if my visions are right, it means we should all be leaving the City about now.”
He looked perfectly serious. And for some inexplicable reason, even though I knew he could well be right, his tone made me want to laugh. It was all too much to take in. Preposterous that somebody had blown up the Treaty Hall, had brought the negotiations to the teetering edge of ruin before they had even begun.
It couldn’t be real. I bit back the giggle that rose in my throat. I felt suddenly as though I had drunk several glasses of his brandy in rapid succession. Light-headed and reckless. I didn’t want to think about any of it anymore.
And I knew what I did want to do instead.
Chapter Sixteen
SASKIA
“So everything is pointless, there’s nothing we can do, and we’re all going to die?” I said.
Fen looked grim. Grim yet delicious. I didn’t doubt that he believed what he saw, but I wasn’t quite ready to give up the fight just yet. But we had both had just about enough of everything tonight. I could think of one thing that would make me feel better. It would also take Fen’s mind off the visions plaguing him.
“Yes,” he said shortly. “So can I have my damned brandy, please?”
I grasped the decanter round its throat and held it out to him. “This brandy?” I tilted the bottle, walking toward him.
His eyes flicked to the liquor, then back to me. “Yes.”
“No,” I said as I came within arm’s reach.
“No?”
“No,” I repeated. To emphasize my point, I tossed the decanter toward the wall. It hit with a dull thud, then dropped to the floor, where it shattered with a pleasing crash.
“What the hell?” Fen said, half rising.
I stepped closer, put my hand on his chest, and shoved him back into the chair.
“I have something better than brandy, Fen,” I said, watching his furious expression turn wary even as his pupils widened.
“What’s that?”
“Me.”
“Excuse me?” He sounded startled, but his pupils flared wider, his eyes deepening to the darkly delicious shade I was coming to know all too well.
“You heard me,” I said. Beneath my hand his heart sped faster. He wanted me. I knew that much. Well and good. I wanted him too. All I had to do was convince him that it was all right to take me.
“Saskia . . .” he said warningly.
“Shut up, Fen.” I lifted my hand so I could straighten. “You think too much like my brothers.”
His mouth dropped open. “This is your parents’ house.”
“I know,” I said cheerfully. “But they have other things to worry about. And this room is well warded. I’ve told you before. I’m not a good human girl. Well-bred, I have to admit, but that hasn’t stopped either of my brothers from doing what they want. I’m a mage, Fen. I can call fire. I can make metal dance. I can hear the song of the iron. I can hear the chain around your wrist and I can hear the blood in your veins. I hear it rushing, Fen. Rushing because your heart is pounding. You want me.”
“I—”
“I said, shut up.” I smiled down at him. “Stop making things complicated. I’m not asking you to marry me. Hellfire, Fen, if you’re right, there’s really not much time left, and I, for one, intend to at least have one last piece of fun before I die. I’d like to have it with you.” I stared down at him, arching an eyebrow as I let my hands rise to the button at the collar of my blouse. “But if you’re determined to sit there and sulk, then I can go find—”
His hand shot out, circled my wrist. Drew me toward him.
“I. Am. Not. Sulking.”
“Well, then,” I said, “prove it.” I stepped back, turned around and headed across the room to the bathroom door.
“Where are you going?”
“I need a bath,” I said. “So do you. Perhaps you’d like to scrub my back?”
He tilted his head. “Are you sure about this?”
“Yes, I’m sure. So perhaps you’d like to make up your mind now?” I walked into the bathroom without waiting to hear his reply and bent to turn the water on in the tub before I could change my mind. The rushing sound of steaming water pouring into the bath matched the whoosh and pound of my pulse in my ears as I stood there waiting to see if he would join me. I picked up a flask of my favorite bath oil. Undid the stopper. Poured it in. One heartbeat. Two. Three. Four.
Then I heard his footsteps on the floor behind me. Felt his eyes on my back.
“What took you so long?”
“I had to take my boots off,” he said.
I turned to face him. Sure enough, he was barefoot, leaning against the doorway in his shirt and trousers. His jacket, apparently, had been abandoned along with his boots.
“Couldn’t you have taken them off in here?”
“Water’s bad for the leather,” he said.
I smiled at his perfectly serious tone. “Scared I was going to pull you in fully clothed?”
He came closer still, and now there was a smile on his face to match my own. “No. Scared you wouldn’t. Scared that I might be hallucinating all of this at the end of a very long day.” He reached out and ran a finger along my face. “You feel real. Are you real, Saskia?”
“I think so.” My voice shook slightly. I echoed his gesture. “And you?”
“I don’t know anymore.” He shook his head, then smiled again. “But if this is a vision, it’s the best one I’ve had in a very long time and I’m more than happy to keep having it.”
“Good.” I stepped into him, reached up and kissed him lightly. “Let’s see what we can see together then.”
He pushed the door shut and turned the key in the lock. I felt a tingle of magic that meant he’d added another shield to the lock. Thoughtful of him.
I risked a quick glance at the tub, nearly half full already. Steam rose from the surface of the water, curling invitingly. But I was more interested in the man than the bath right now.
Fen came back to me and pulled me close. This time our kiss was anything but light. It was as heady and heated as the steam rising around us. Warming me from my head to my toes. Both of us exhausted and dirty and disheveled, yet he still smelled and tasted better than any other man I’d taken to my bed.
I pressed myself closer, eager for the feel of him against me. I tugged his shirt free of his trousers and ran my hands up and under, skimming the muscles of his back. He made a pleased noise against my mouth and his hands started working at the buttons that fastened my back. Too many buttons, I thought resentfully. Reggie did beautiful work on her gowns, but once she was well again, I would need to speak to her about making them quicker to get out of.
Not that Fen seemed to have that much difficulty. In no time at all my gown slid from my shoulders, as though buttons and fastenings had simply evaporated under the touch of his clever fingers, leaving me in my petticoats and corset.
The corset seemed suddenly too tight. I couldn’t draw a deep
enough breath as Fen stepped back and just looked at me.
I let him look as long as I could bear, then, when I couldn’t stand it anymore, I turned and shut off the taps before the bath could overflow. The steam no longer felt quite so warm. I figured that was because my skin now felt hot enough on its own.
Fen came up behind me and ran his hand down my back, stopping where my spine ended. Then those keen fingers ran up and started working on my laces with as much proficiency as he’d shown with my buttons. Once those were free, he slipped the corset aside and tossed it into one corner of the room before spinning me and taking my mouth.
When we drew apart, both breathless, I noticed the smear of ash across his face where I’d touched him and started to laugh without meaning to.
“What?”
I just shook my head, bent down and dipped one of the washcloths into the bathwater. I used it to wipe his face gently and giggled harder when the water ran down onto his shirt, turning the fabric somewhat transparent.
His eyes went wide. “Two can play that game.”
He picked up a washcloth of his own. He didn’t even pretend to wipe my face though . . . just laid it across my chest, then squeezed the water out so it ran down the curves of my breast, the rapidly cooling water making my nipples spike harder against the thin silk of my chemise.
“Gods,” he muttered and flung the cloth back into the water, where it landed with a splash. His hand splayed across my breast, thumb teasing the nipple with a pressure that made me shiver despite the heat in the room. “I know you wanted a bath,” he said, voice gone husky, “but I’d like to propose an alternative.”
It took a moment to find my voice, so distracted was I by the dual sensations of his touch and watching his dark olive skin against my own paler flesh. “Such as?”
“Bed first, then bath. Later. Much later,” he added as he bent and replaced his thumb with his mouth, sucking gently, then fiercer. At that point I no longer cared where we were or what we used as long as we got to some suitable horizontal surface quickly.
“Bed,” I agreed and pushed him away. I pointed toward the door he’d warded. “That way.”
He laughed, then took my hand and pulled me toward the door. We half stumbled back into the bedroom, coming together again to kiss and shed the rest of our clothes in a frenzy as we moved toward the bed.
Fen’s shirt and trousers vanished somehow and he dispensed with my chemise with one rapid upward tug, throwing it over his shoulder.
He dispensed with the neat piles of clothes laid on my bed in much the same fashion, tumbling them onto the floor with an impatient sweep of his arms. I laughed again at his eagerness until he turned back to me and the heat burning in those dark green eyes stole the laughter from my lips, replacing it with an urgent hunger that made me gasp.
I walked closer, pushing him backward until he toppled onto the bed and I could straddle him, feeling the long length of his cock underneath me with a sigh of satisfaction.
He looked up with an expression that was both surprised and pleased.
“I have to remember this,” he said.
“Remember what?” I paused, half leaning toward him.
His grin was wicked. “You’re really not a good girl.”
“Oh, I’m very good,” I promised him with a wriggle of my hips that made him catch his breath.
He reached up and his hand closed over the back of my neck, tugging my face down so we could kiss again. “So am I,” he breathed, and then he proceeded to show me that he hadn’t been boasting.
* * *
The next morning, breakfast was subdued. I woke far too early, alone in my bed. While I appreciated Fen’s discretion in disappearing, I missed the warm weight of him beside me. He didn’t appear at breakfast. That made matters somewhat simpler. My mother had enough on her plate without having her illusions about the life I led shattered as well.
Lily and I sipped coffee and attempted to distract Hannah from her unending stream of questions. Mother hardly ate anything before vanishing off to organize yet another detail in her planning of the exodus.
After a few more minutes I convinced Hannah to go and see if she could help.
“How much longer, do you think?” I asked Lily. The sun was well into the sky now and the ornate clock on the end of the breakfast buffet said it was nearly eight. Surely Simon had to come soon.
Lily shrugged. “They’ll come when they come.” She took a sip of her third cup of coffee, the toast on her plate growing stone-cold as she ignored it.
Not so calm as she pretended. I forced myself to take a forkful of the bacon I’d put on my plate. I had no more appetite than Lily, but unlike her with her wraith’s endurance, I needed to eat to function. “What do you think will happen?”
Lily regarded me for a moment. “I think the Blood will make a move,” she said bluntly. “If the human council and the Templars don’t step in to keep the peace and get the negotiations back on track, then Ignatius will almost certainly take action.”
It seemed that Fen wasn’t the only pessimist I had to deal with.
Or maybe he and Lily were merely pragmatic enough to face what the rest of us weren’t yet ready to deal with. The possibility of war. Of death and violence. Of losing.
No. I wasn’t going to think about that. Just like I wasn’t going to think about the fact that my urge to go and find Fen was growing stronger with each minute I sat here. If I concentrated, I could probably work out where he was. Our house was large, but his chain would still be easy enough for me to sense. But no. We had to keep things between us simple and, for now at least, discreet. Anything more was too difficult to contemplate.
* * *
I’d had enough coffee to make my stomach feel like I’d been drinking acid by the time Simon finally arrived. He didn’t have Guy with him, which only intensified the ache in my gut.
Simon kissed Lily, then gulped down the coffee she offered while I watched silently. He looked worn out. Guilt about the few hours of sleep I’d gotten tugged at me. As did the fact that I could have gotten quite a few more if I hadn’t been occupying myself with Fen.
“We should go out into the garden,” I said. “Simon needs sunlight.” And outside, I too could touch the earth and draw power and strength from the metal beneath her skin.
Simon drank more coffee. “The garden is too exposed. The drawing room will do.”
I didn’t see that sitting in a room with huge glass windows was necessarily any safer than sitting in a garden that was also heavily warded. But Simon knew the house’s defenses even better than I did and he was the one who’d spent time training as a Templar before he’d decided to become a healer.
“I should find Fen,” I said. “He’ll want to hear this too.”
“No need.” Fen appeared in the doorway. I wondered if he’d been waiting in his room all this time, avoiding me. He could have seen Simon arriving out his window and known when to come down.
“Good morning.” Fen nodded politely at Lily and me and came to sit at the table, his gaze focused on Simon, his whole body carrying an air of only barely leashed need for action.
I felt a pang at his casual greeting. Which was foolish. He was being discreet. At least I hoped he was. I dug my fingernails into my palm under the cover of the tablecloth. Time to focus, not pout after a man.
“Are Holly and Reggie safe?” Fen said next, only increasing my pique.
“Yes.” Simon nodded. “We’ve increased the wards at St. Giles, but there have been no incidents. Holly’s there now with Reggie.”
Fen’s posture eased a little, but his mouth turned down at the mention of St. Giles. He was thinking about Reggie and Holly down in the hidden ward, no doubt, not about all the other patients wounded in the explosion.
“We were going to go into the drawing room,” I said. Lily nodded, tugged at Simon and set him in the direction of the door. Then she started piling food on a plate, obviously intending to take it with her and make sure he ate.
“You should eat something too,” I said to Fen.
Lily shot me a sidewise glance. I ignored her.
“I’m not hungry,” Fen said. But he had to be starving.
I didn’t press the point. I poured myself another cup of coffee and raised it to my lips before my stomach twinged in protest at the thought. I put the cup down.
Lily looked pointedly at Fen, then gestured toward the food. “Eat while you can. We don’t know what’s going to happen today.”
Simon was sitting on one of the deep window ledges when we all trooped into the drawing room, his expression distracted as he stared down at the street below us. Mother had joined him. She was seated in her usual place, her hands busy winding up tapestry wools from the jumble in the basket that lived beside her chair and stowing them in a sewing case.
She was watching Simon. His gaze didn’t shift as we entered, his focus absolute. Watching for Guy?
I wanted my brother home too. Of all of us, Guy was the one who put himself most at risk day in and day out and even though I was accustomed to the sensation of being worried about him, it never went away entirely. There was a part of me—sometimes pushed deep below consciousness and sometimes front and center in my brain—that was always braced for bad news.
I joined Simon and extended my own power, seeking the faint spark of Guy’s blood. As long as he was within the City walls I would be able to sense him. Much past that and my power reached its limits. I hadn’t been able to feel him during those few years he’d spent in the Voodoo Territories—which had driven me crazy at first— nor when he’d gone into Summerdale with Holly, though I suspected in Summerdale at least, that was more to do with the Veiled Court’s protections than a lack of power on my part.
“Can you feel him?” Simon said.
It took a moment more, but then I caught it.
Guy. Moving. Alive. A smile broke over my face. “He’s somewhere near the Brother House.”
Who knew if that was good or bad, but for now knowing he was alive was enough to ease the tension in the room. Mother breathed a sigh of relief and then, to cover her lapse, reached for another hank of thread.